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Perfectionism Kills
My brain is wired funnily.
“Ok, I need to be 1% better each day, because that would lead to ~3700% per year by compound interest…And I need to be 1% better in all areas of life, ok, let’s see. I meditated, I ate healthily, I learned a thing or two…damn, I forgot to go to the gym…”
That was the thought process I had in my head 2 seconds before I started blaming myself.
My brain is wired funnily: it thinks that I have to be #1 at everything I do. I need to be the smartest, the fittest, the strongest, the healthiest, the richest, etc.,
What will happen if I am not? Nobody will love me.
Such perfectionism can kill you. Or at least it can make your life an ongoing misery. I didn’t find any valuable answers to this problem on the Internet, so I decided to write this piece.
For as long as I can remember, I did things brilliantly. When I was a kid, the adults were amazed by my ability to do my homework without a need for help or a kick in the butt. I was always serious and called a ‘small professor’ — there are photos of me standing with a briefcase at five years old.
No kid should ever have a briefcase.
As I grew older, I started to view this strive for perfectionism as a superpower. I didn’t obsess about homework or…